Author: Pinoy Penman

Penman for Monday, March 10, 2008

THIS THURSDAY, March 13, from 3 to 5 pm at the Main Lobby of Palma Hall, the University of the Philippines in Diliman, a new book is going to be launched by Anvil Publishing with the somewhat improbable title of Militant But Groovy: Stories of Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan. I wondered where the editors—chiefly human rights lawyer Soliman Santos—had gotten that title until I re-read my brief contribution that volume, which I’d submitted more than two years ago, and I realized, much mortified, that it came from me.

The book is a collection of personal memoirs from veterans of what’s come to be known as the First Quarter Storm—that long period of intense, rousing, and sometimes frightening political protest that presaged (and, some say, provoked) martial law in the early 1970s and set the stage for EDSA. For those of us born in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, it coincided with our physical, emotional, and intellectual coming of age; and those of us who managed to survive the FQS and stagger on to midlife will always look back on it as our defining moment; indeed, it defined us as much as we defined it.

The Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan, or SDK, was one of several “mass organizations” that brought young activists together under the banner of what we proudly avowed to be the “national democratic revolution.” I was 16 when I joined it and embraced its yellow-starred red flag; barely two years later I would land in martial-law prison. I’ve always considered myself lucky to have come out of martial law alive, because many of our comrades didn’t. When I wrote my first novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place (Anvil, 1992), it was a form of thanksgiving, of memorializing the dead, and also, I should admit, of apologizing to them for straying from the path that led them to their graves.

It’s easy to see the events of 35 to 40 years ago with a moist, romantic eye and to cast ourselves as noble heroes; the definitive, scholarly history of the martial law years has yet to be written, and when it is, I’m sure that all our petty foibles—the bare humanity of those whom we swore could walk on water—will come through. That will not tarnish nor diminish the very real contributions of those young Filipinos to the causes and crosses that we sadly continue to bear today: the struggle against tyranny, injustice, exploitation, and corruption.

A few weeks ago, on the 22nd anniversary of EDSA 1—I was interviewed on TV as an FQS activist and as a writer for my impressions of the current political scene. As often happens with these things, I forgot what I really wanted to say until I was driving out of the studio. And it was this: that when we look at or look for the champions and the heroes who will lead us out of the darkness, we shouldn’t expect to find a perfect man or woman of entirely unblemished character.

I can’t prove it with statistics, but I have a dramatist’s suspicion that every great hero is, in one way or another, deeply flawed—by hubris, ambition, venery, naivete, or some wayward passion—but they became and they remain heroes because, at the tipping point, they rose above their flaws and did something for the greater good that may have surprised even themselves. When I see all the muck that’s dredged up and thrown at anyone who dares to blow the whistle on bigtime corruption and oppression in our society, I can’t help thinking what a demolition job they could’ve done on the likes of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, and Ninoy Aquino—and if we had believed them, or let ourselves be distracted by Bonifacio’s pride, Rizal’s romances, and Ninoy’s ambition, then we would have gained nothing in the end, perpetually hostage to our mistrust and fear.

An interviewer asked me: how should young people—your students—look at a character like Jun Lozada? I gave a rather broad answer, but I should’ve just said, “He’s no Rizal and no Ninoy, certainly not, but if you’re a teenager, just think of him as your father, warts and all. Now what would you do and how would you think if your Dad were caught in that situation—if armed men took your Dad away to keep him from telling the truth?” (And for that matter, what can you say to a child who demands the truth from his teacher, only to be told, “I can’t tell you—it’s executive privilege”?)

But to get back to the book: these are the stories of a generation of street-marchers, and how ironic and yet how apt it is that it’s being launched not in the soft and cozy lap of safe nostalgia, but in the grip of another crisis, whose noises—whispers, alarms, clamors, slogans, and soundbites—seem all too familiar.

Here’s what I sent in for that book, and for many more of these reminiscences from such names as Butch Hilario, Gani Serrano, Rol Peña, Jeepy Perez, Jorge Sibal, Lynn Castilla, Ome Candazo, Jonat dela Cruz, Efren Abueg, Ven Jose, Jerry Araos, and the late Alex Ontong and Popoy Valencia, join us this Thursday afternoon for the launch. I don’t know how militant or how groovy we remain, nearly four decades after the facts being recollected here, so we’ll just have to go there and see.


I JOINED the SDK almost as soon as I entered UP in 1970, through what I later realized was the normal recruitment route—first, membership in the more innocuous Nationalist Corps, then integration into SDK itself. Rightly or wrongly (wrongly, as it turned out), SDK appealed to me as being somehow just as militant but groovier, to use a word from that time, than the fire-breathing, roughshod Kabataang Makabayan (KM).

A lot of the people I knew and idolized were with SDK—Gary Olivar, Tony Tagamolila, Mario Taguiwalo, Rey Vea—writers and editors all of whom I, a couple of years their junior, wanted to follow. Some members were also fraternity brothers in Alpha Sigma—Benny Tiamzon and Joey Calderon, most notably. I felt I was in the best company; these guys (and some very nice gals) couldn’t possible go wrong. I was small fry then (and remained small fry), too young to be in on the big discussions, but it impressed me to overhear people like Vic David and Titus de Borja chat about the “18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte.” I was good only for Mao and the Five Golden Rays.

I remember a blur of HQs—Scout Castor, Arayat, an apartment near Sulo Hotel—but our favorite hangout was the “Trialogue,” a small room at the far left end of Vinzons Hall. At this time my family lived very close by—we were squatters on Old Balara—but I liked spending time at the Trialogue, watching Willie Tañedo draw figures for flyers and streamers (I recall being entranced—with horror and fascination—by Willie’s depiction of Francis Sontillano’s splattered brain).

I fancied myself a propagandist and had had some training in theater with PETA, so I signed up for what was then Dulaang Sadeka as soon as it was formed, and even joined a chorus that performed a piece from Brecht—can’t remember now which one it was, exactly—in whiteface at the ALEC. This was even before Gintong Silahis emerged as SDK’s cultural arm, and even before Brecht had be set aside for being too bourgeois in favor of more overt Peking-Opera-style tableaus.

It was exhilarating to be in as many rallies and demos as possible, to be right there in the thick of the Diliman Commune, to march with a thousand others from Los Baños to Manila, to actually carry a small Beretta in a hollowed-out Bible, Godfather-style, for Tony Tagamolila at the CEGP conference (not that I would have known what to do with it; I’d never fired a shot in my life, and still never have).

There were, of course, deaths and betrayals to contend with, especially as martial law approached and took over the landscape. The bloated face and mutilated body of my tocayo Butch Landrito has stayed with me all these years, and the last time I counted all the people I personally knew who died in the FQS, I came up with 21, and certainly there were more, too many more. There was this one time, early during martial law, when I found myself in a UG house with people who’ve all passed on—Tony Hilario (with his trademark way of holding a cigarette between the tips of his circled fingers), journalist Henry Romero (technically still a desaparecido), and Jack Peña (ever the Ilonggo, railing against imperiali-sum and the o-well price hike). Ironically, I may have been saved by being arrested in January 1973 and spending the next seven months in Fort Bonifacio.

And so I live on, we live on, as the articulate survivors, a little yellow star imprinted in some imperishable corner of our graying minds.

Penman for Sunday, March 9, 2008


(No, I haven't moved from Monday to Sunday in the Star, in case you're wondering. This is a one-off, produced for a special issue of the Star. We'll be back to regular programming tomorrow.)


AS MOST people what their idea of the finest pen in the world is, and the name that will almost surely spring to their minds and lips will be “Montblanc.” There are, in truth, quite a few other makers of top-rank fountain pens from Japan, Italy, the United States, and the UK—as well as from Germany itself, where Montblanc is based, in Hamburg—but few brands have acquired Montblanc’s inimitable familiarity, even among people who’ve never held and used a fountain pen in their lives.

We say “Montblanc” in the same breath as we say “Rolls Royce”, and that says a lot for the mystique of a company that started out 102 years ago as the Simplo-Filler Pen Company before switching to “Montblanc” in 1910. And a good thing, too, that they did: “Simplo-Filler” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue with the same panache as “Montblanc”—which, incidentally, is always spelled as one word when applied to the pen brand, and two words otherwise—that “otherwise” being the snowcapped massif (the “white mountain,” thus the name) in the Alps between Italy and France. (The white “star” on the cap of every Montblanc pen is meant to be the mountain summit itself, and the number “4810” you’ll find on the nib is the height, in meters, of Europe’s tallest mountain.) The story goes that Montblanc’s founders—two men, Claus Johannes Voss and Christian Lausen—chose the name to signify their desire to reach the absolute peak of penmaking success.

And, boy, did they. Capitalizing on the brand’s cachet, the company has since gone on to craft not just writing instruments but high-end luxury items such as watches, leather goods, jewelry, eyewear, and even fragrances, sold in about 360 boutiques worldwide. A line of limited-edition pens—named after and dedicated to such luminaries as Mozart, Hemingway, and Agatha Christie—demonstrates the ultimate in Montblanc’s core competency, the making of fine pens.

But never mind the press releases and the global sales figures. Like any other writer and fancier of fountain pens, my relationship with Montblanc has been an intimately personal one, forged over decades of distant admiration and constant use. Like many, I’d always dreamed even in my youth of owning a Montblanc, equating it to that model that, once you see it, you’ll never forget—the hugely impressive Meisterstuck (“Masterpiece”) 149, beloved of diplomats, CEOs, and politicians. Unfortunately, it was well beyond what I could afford as a young reporter, even if I forsook a year’s lunches.

My first Montblanc would have to wait until 1990; I had begun to seriously collect pens as a graduate student in America, and where I was—the Midwest, around Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio—was the heartland of antiques and vintage collectibles; great pens were still quite easy to find at reasonable prices, as long as you were willing to track them down in shops, auctions, yard sales, and conventions (the Internet was still in its infancy then). There was a big pen show in Chicago that I was willing to skip classes for to attend, and attend I did, clutching what few pens I had that I thought I could trade for something I truly coveted.

One of those pens in my pocket was a lapis-blue Parker Duofold junior-sized fountain pen from the mid-1920s, the barrel of which I’d gotten for $5 from another show and had found the right cap for, for another $5. Its lustrous blue color was much sought after, and I knew I had a winner in my hands. I ambled over to a stall that seemed to sell nothing but marvelous Montblancs—rows and rows of gigantic 149s and the somewhat smaller 146s—and sighed when I saw their prices. But then the stall owner saw the little blue Parker in my pocket and said the magic words, “Wanna trade?” I didn’t think twice, and walked away with a 146 that remains, hands down, my best “daily writer” today in terms of the smoothness of the flow of the ink from its gold nib.

That 146 would be joined by a few others; some years later, following what had to be a windfall, I finally got my 149; I’ve never used it on a daily basis, still astounded after all this time by its sheer size. When I see one in someone else’s pocket (like my friend’s, the architect Toti Villalon) I still let out a small gasp of longing, forgetting that I have one stashed away under lock and key.

Also some years before she died, the food critic and social historian Doreen G. Fernandez gifted me with a small black box that turned out to contain a pen-and-pencil set of Montblanc 220s from about 1960. And fairly recently, the art dealer Eric Duldulao made me a present of a very fine silver Montblanc Noblesse from the 1970s.

I still can’t come up with a good answer when I ask what I’ve done to deserve such extravagant kindnesses, but I’m not complaining. Sometimes I think that our greatest desires emanate from us like a big red sign, and my passion for pens led my friends to turn over what they believed to be their most precious ones, their Montblancs. Thank you all! And now for that Ernest Hemingway Limited Edition, seen here with its glorious orange barrel…. Hither, dear, come hither!

Penman for Monday, March 3, 2008


I WENT to school one recent Wednesday in a polo barong—something I don’t normally do, not since I gave up my administrative posts, but which I did anyway since I had a meeting outside of the university earlier that morning.

I like polo barongs; I don’t think there’s a better compromise between formality and informality, or tradition and modernity; the fabric—a sturdy linen, sporting the colorfully descriptive nickname of gusot mayaman—is neither too dainty nor too rough, and the embroidery around the half-open front lends just enough (and take note, boys—just enough, shouldn’t ever be too much) grace to the total effect of the piece. I like to have my barongs stiffened with a spray of starch, perhaps as a throwback to my days as a Catholic school boy, when our shirts were a kind of shining armor, at least until recess; sure, they’ll get creased over the long workday, but even the crinkles contribute to the implicit narrative of a man on the job.

I used to be a shirt-and-tie guy, until my girth got too big for my beltline to stay where it should have—not six inches too high (the man-in-a-barrel look) or too low (the gut-runneth-over look); ties look awful either way, like downward arrows pointing to the scene of the crime. On the other hand, worn over a cotton sando or T-shirt, the polo barong works wonders for the overfed, without marking the wearer as a slouch. It’s the “white” in “white-collar worker,” and wearing one always makes me feel better about working.

But this isn’t really about the polo barong. It’s just a prop in my story, which began with me going off to a meeting in Ortigas that morning, wearing the barong with one of my favorite fountain pens—a big Pelikan M800 with a gorgeous red barrel and a black, gold-trimmed cap—clipped onto the barong’s front flap, right above my heart. This Pelikan had been another of my Holy Grails, tracked down on eBay a couple of years ago and paid for with the noble blood of teaching.

When they feel successful, many businessmen and politicians go out and reward themselves with a Montblanc, which is the only premium pen brand most people know. But let me give you a tip, folks: Montblancs are fine, and there are a couple of them I wouldn’t mind having once I get that $1 million advance for my next novel, but among pen collectors and fanciers, doting on Montblancs suggests that, uhm, you don’t get around much. There are Italian, Japanese, and yes, other German pens to die for, and Hanover-based Pelikan makes some of them. The M800 is nowhere near Pelikan’s grandest, biggest, or most expensive piece, but it’s a lovely illustration of the penmaker’s craft in itself, from the trademark bird emblazoned on its crown to the swirls engraved on the 18K nib.

I know that some of you are squirming in your seats and muttering, “Why doesn’t this jerk of a show-off just use a Bic like the rest of us?” It’s a fair question, and I’ve often wondered about the answer. I’m sure psychologists have all the studies to show how collecting (not just pens, but everything from milkmaid figurines to grandfather clocks) can be a pathological addiction; I just think of it as my chosen quirk, my kaartehan, a shortcut to looking and sounding interesting for someone who won’t ever be mistaken for George Clooney or Brad Pitt. It doesn’t take a psychologist to establish the connection between a pen and, well, you figure out its male counterpart, which probably explains why, in the pen-collecting fraternity, bigger is generally better, with pens the size of Cavendish bananas granting their holders top-gorilla status.

But back to my tale of terror. I rushed back to Diliman from Ortigas for a thesis defense, in the course of which I took out and uncapped my Pelikan to make some notes and doodles in the margins of the thesis (lest I be accused of inattention). I remember thinking (make that, narcissistically gloating), “What a wonderful pen this is, what a great bargain this was, oh look at the size of that nib, see how that line fades from black to blue!” The thesis defense over, I went to the UPICW office to make some inquiries, then entered my own cubbyhole to write a note, with a pencil I fished out of a can. Then home I went, relieved to have completed another day. I began unbuttoning my polo barong—then stopped cold as I realized that, horror of horrors, the Pelikan’s cap was still hanging there, but the barrel—the rest of the pen—was gone. It had come unscrewed, somewhere on campus within the past half hour, and I had no idea where.

Here, insert all the clichés you can imagine: “The blood drained out of my head.” “A knot formed in my stomach.” “My throat felt dry as sandpaper.” You know how it is when you’ve suddenly lost something you weren’t supposed to; remember when, as a kid, you lost that P100 bill your Dad gave you to buy a textbook with, or the P1,000 that was supposed to pay for your tuition? Or—to use what my students, in a quick classroom survey, rated as their foremost fear, in this age of tsunamis, megascams, and desaparecidos—have you ever lost your cellphone?

That’s what it felt like: a solid hit in the gut, and instantly my defense mechanisms swung into action, seeking to protect me from further pain. A philosopher’s voice (sounding a lot like James Earl Jones) whispered in my ear: “We are not to cling to the things of this world, which have been tainted or corrupted by evil…. “ I listened for about five seconds, decided that this guru had been badly misinformed, then dashed out the door to my car, and broke all the speed limits around campus to get back to the office and literally retrace my steps, hoping to find, on some gentle floor, the Pelikan’s pristine barrel, unscathed from its precipitous fall.

On that frantic drive back, I thought of how stupid I had been—vanity of vanities!—to have even thought of bringing such a treasure along, like a toy to show off in elementary school. I remembered how I had lost many other pens, but never learned. One of them, a century-old filigree pen, was a Christmas gift from a friend, tucked into a box with a book; I kept the book and threw away the box; another was a 1925 Parker Duofold, dropped on a bus in Milwaukee; the sickening list goes on. That should’ve stopped me from trotting these little masterpieces out, but I have this strange notion that nice things are meant to be used; so I put my best pens through a set rotation, and now I was paying for my stubbornness.

Despite my most diligent efforts, the Pelikan was nowhere to be found. I crouched on all fours in the faculty parking lot, thinking that it had rolled to the safety of a gutter, or—ghastly thought—had been crushed beneath the wheel of a prosperous professor’s Volvo; I would’ve scavenged the remains and given them a proper Viking send-off, relieved, at least, from the horrifying prospect that my wayward pen was out there, being employed by some mindless undergraduate as an icepick. Better to know it was dead than forever lost, I said, so I could grieve—and start looking for a new one. I interviewed the security guards, and put out an APB; but no one had seen anything—no one ever does, as I’d learned from CSI.

I drove back home, dejected and desultory; I thought of printing out and posting “Wanted” pictures, like our friends Boojie and Chingbee did, when their cat Minggoy decided to take a stroll around the village. Again the endorphins came flooding through me, blocking out the pain, not too successfully. I thought of all the times that Pelikan and I had spent together, all the notes it had imprinted onto my Moleskine, the reassuring gravity of its presence in my pocket. The pocketless barong, I realized, was no place for a fine pen; today would be the last time I would make that mistake.

In a final gesture of surrender and acceptance, I stepped into the bathroom to undress, perhaps to ritually remove any reminder of the sorry outcome of that day. My polo barong was all messed up and stained with sweat; I began thinking how different things would have been had I worn a long-sleeved shirt. What if this, what if that…. In front of the mirror, I pulled the barong over my head—then saw a blue-black stain blooming across my undershirt, just below my belly button. Instinctively I clutched the odd-colored wound—and touched a familiar shape. Indeed the barrel had fallen off its cap, but it had been caught and trapped in the sando beneath my gut and above my belt! I’d been running around like a headless chicken for nearly an hour, and the thing was right there all along.

I jumped for joy and kissed the pen, making all sorts of fervent pledges never to stick it into a barong again. “Don’t do that again! I don’t ever want to lose you like that!” At least that’s what I said to the Pelikan—but not to the Montblanc, the Parker, nor the Faber-Castell.


READER EMMANUEL alerted me to this Essay Writing Competition, which seems worth a try if you’re between 18 and 25 and have a fly of an idea buzzing around your head. Check this out: “The World Bank, the Cities Alliance, and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs invite youth aged 18-25 from all countries of the world to participate in the International Essay Competition 2008: ‘WANTED: Your Practical Ideas—What can you do to shape the city of your dreams?’ Essays can be submitted online in English, French, Spanish, Arabic or Portuguese until March 23, 2008. Awards: 5000 USD and 1000 USD plus a free trip to the awarding ceremonies in South Africa for the finalists. For more information and submissions, visit www.essaycompetition.org.